There’s a New Sherriff in Town — Texas as Privacy Regulator
For many years, the privacy community took the position that the state of California was the leading data privacy regulator. The state of New York, with its active cyber enforcement by the New York Department of Financial Services, was a close second. However, in the past two years, Texas has emerged not only as a significant privacy regulator but also as an aggressive enforcer of its laws.
Texas has passed a comprehensive series of laws relating to consumer and children’s data privacy, artificial intelligence and data brokers, among other things. And the state’s attorney general has secured multibillion-dollar settlements against major technology companies for alleged violations of state laws. While the federal government and many other states have taken a light-touch approach to privacy and AI, Texas has been out front.